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Jewish World Review Nov. 5, 2002 / 30 Mar-Cheshvan, 5763
Michael Ledeen
Taheri has been a constant critic of the Khamenei tyranny for some time, but had been left free because of
his considerable prestige and support from other leading ayatollahs. But this outburst was too much, and
orders were given to arrest him. However, when the police tried to carry out the orders, they found the
citizens of Isfahan - long considered the most-rebellious city in the country - ready to fight in defense of
Taheri, and the police were forced to inform Khamenei that they were unable to arrest Taheri. The uneasy
and potentially explosive standoff continues.
The two dead parliamentarians included Ali-Reza Nouri, the brother of a former interior minister, and, like
his brother, an outspoken opponent of the regime. Ali-Reza had been a supporter of Iran's enfeebled
president, Mohammad Khatami, but recently announced his intention to demand Khatami's resignation,
which might have precipitated even greater public outcries and demonstrations against the regime.
It is hard to see how even such a timid and impotent figure as Khatami can remain in office. He made a
gesture of bravado last month by introducing two bills, both passed by parliament, insisting that the religious
leaders had no power to overrule his actions. The most-revered religious figure in Iran, the Ayatollah
Montazeri - now in his sixth year of house arrest in Isfahan - proclaimed that in fact Khatami was right,
and the exercise of such arbitrary power by the regime was not permitted by the Constitution. But Khamenei
and his henchmen have no interest in such legal niceties, and continue to veto any and all efforts to introduce
pockets of freedom into the life of the Islamic Republic, and so far have demonstrated the will to arrest,
torture, and kill anyone who tries to challenge them. Well-informed Iranians with whom I have spoken
believe that the "accident" that befell Nouri and his colleague was an explicit warning to Khatami: If you dare
challenge us further, you will end up the same way.
Meanwhile, the killing continues relentlessly, with public hangings and stonings the order of the day. And the
silence of the West continues apace. Fascinating, isn't it, that the human-rights establishment goes ballistic
over the scheduled stoning of one Nigerian woman, but says hardly a word about the three recent stonings in
Iran, with more in the works? And it's equally fascinating that neither the Department of State nor the staff of
the National Security Council denounces the wave of repression under way in Iran. What can explain the
apparent indifference of Colin Powell and Richard Armitage in Foggy Bottom, and Elliott Abrams at the
NSC? Do they find Iranians less deserving of human rights than Nigerians? And what can explain the
interminable silence of the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times, as well as
the major news networks, to the butchery of the Islamic Republic? At the time of the Khomeini Revolution,
journalists such as Robin Wright and Elaine Sciolino decried the shah's sins. Why do they now blunt their
pens?
In any event, the regime now finds itself between many large rocks and innumerable hard places, as
demonstrated by the constantly self-contradictory statements issued from the mouths of the mullahs. They
punish anyone who suggests it would be goo for Iran to have better relations with the United States, yet they
pursue improved relations themselves, most recently by sending a new ambassador to the United Nations
with a public mandate to woo American officials and opinion makers. One day they promise to fight against
any American action against Iraq, and the next they promise not to intervene if there is a U.N. resolution to
that end. They issue a statement promising to support a two-state "solution" to the Palestinian question if the
Palestinians accept it, and then swear eternal enmity to Israel and denounce anyone who supports a
two-state policy. They deny the presence of al Qaeda terrorists on Iranian soil, and then leak the "news" that
a son of Osama bin Laden entered Iran, and was immediately expelled to Pakistan, or maybe it was Saudi
Arabia. But Western experts know that hundreds of al Qaeda fighters and leaders have either transited Iran,
or remain there in safe havens.
Like the rest of the terror masters, and their appeasers in Europe, the Iranians are trying desperately to buy
time, hoping against hope that President Bush will lose his nerve and call off the revolutionary war. They will
say and do anything that gets them through another day, but they know that once the war starts they are
doomed.
Faster, please. Don't let the war against terrorism turn into a replay of the Gulf War, with the tyrants still in
power.
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